


Interludes

by Raptorlily



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Relationship, Episode Tag 1.11, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 22:59:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10751544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raptorlily/pseuds/Raptorlily
Summary: Before everything goes to the pits, Betty and Jughead have their slow dance at Homecoming.  Three little words not yet said. Episode 1.11 Tag. Requested by the superb createandconstruct





	Interludes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [createandconstruct](https://archiveofourown.org/users/createandconstruct/gifts).



“Juggie, I wanted to apologize for my mother and that stupid dinner. I just _knew_ she was going to turn this into some kind of nightmare and I…”

“Let’s forget about that for now,” Jughead interrupted, leading her out on the gymnasium dance floor and then pulling her in towards him. “You’ve worked so hard on putting this whole Homecoming thing together, why don’t we just… enjoy ourselves for a little while?”

He put his hands on her waist, sweet and loose, and her arms slipped around his neck automatically. It was amazing how his touch and presence always seemed to calm her, the disaster dinner with their families from earlier slowly receding from her mind as her focus was overtaken by the comfort of his arms. His body was warm and solid, and the gentle curves of her body seemed to fit perfectly against it.  

“You said that you don’t you dance.” Betty raised an amused brow at him as they began to move together.

“Well, this isn’t really dancing,” Jughead shrugged. “It’s just swaying to the music while hugging and even _I_ can do that.”

Betty huffed out a laugh and he drew her closer together until their foreheads touched. Up on stage, the DJ started up a slow crooning rendition of Rolling Stones ‘Wild Horses.’ The chauvet lights dimmed to soft blues, pinks and purples in time with first sinuous licks of guitar.

"I don't even think I told you how beautiful you look tonight, Betts." He was wearing his smitten puppy expression—the one that always did funny, flippy things to Betty's heart. “I feel like the luckiest guy in the room right now.”

 “Oh, I don’t know, Juggie. You clean up pretty nice too.” She smoothed her hands down the length of his shoulders to demonstrate her appreciation for the figure he cut in a suit. This one was more fitted than the last one she saw him wear and quietly decided that maybe she had a thing for Jughead Jones in formal attire. “I think we’re _both_  pretty lucky."

She moved her eyes up to meet his gaze. She bit her lip and gently pulled him forward by his tie, Jughead happily obliging with a soft but lingering kiss.  When he pulled away, they smiled at each other and she moved her head to his shoulder, closing her eyes and breathing him in, the faint woodsy cologne he dabbed on for the occasion filling her with an odd sense of giddiness as fairy-lights twinkled above them.

"I like this," she sighed. "I wish this could be like this always--no crazy parents or drama. Just us, enjoying each other's company." She could feel Jughead's heart thumping against her palm and nuzzled closer to his collar.

He chuckled lowly.

“You know, two months ago, if somebody told me that it would be you and I right here, right now, I wouldn’t have believed them," Jughead murmured into her hair. “Even when I kissed you, back in your room that first time. I didn’t think—I couldn’t even imagine things working out the way they have now.”

Betty closed her eyes, remembering that afternoon more clearly and perfectly than anything else in recent memory. He had climbed the ladder to her window, called her Juliet and kissed her like she was about board a plane to Lisbon.

He'd been so nervous he trembled through the whole thing.

It was one of the sweetest things that had ever happened to her.

 “Oh?” she asked softly. “Then what were you expecting?”

“Honestly?” He reflected a moment. “I thought you were going to push me away. I didn’t really think any of it through. It was a kind of a spur of the moment thing.” He shook his head. “But I guess it’d been building up for so long and then as we got closer, I thought maybe I could finally…”

“How long?”

He pulled her away to look at her, his brows marched together in confusion. “How long what?”

“How long was it building?” She clarified, her pulse quickening. “How long were you wanting to kiss me for? How long have you _liked_ me?"

He seemed mixed up by the question and looked away.

“Uhm, well, you were always hung up on Archie, and I thought for a while that maybe he’d return your feelings and I didn’t want to get in the way and I…”

“How. Long. Jughead?”

He mumbled something. She couldn’t hear over the music.

_—Wild, wild horses—_

“What?”

“Since second grade,” he said a little louder this time, still not looking her in the eye.  He looked embarrassed. “When you climbed up to my treehouse and ripped the ‘No Girls Allowed’ sign clean off the door.”

Betty looked up at him in amazement and then huffed out a laugh.

“Oh my God! I remember that!” She shook her head, her mind’s eye hurtling her back to the ramshackle treefort near the edge of Eversgreen Forest. It had a pretty sturdy rope ladder, she remembered, and the inside was decorated with rusting road signs Archie and Jughead crossed-their-hearts-hoped-to-die they just found ‘lying around.’ “You kept putting that thing back up there.”

“Yep. And you kept tearing it down until I hammered in so many nails you couldn’t anymore, so you cried.“

“I was actually really upset with you about that,” she mused, recalling next the afternoon she tried to convince her father to take her to Home Depot for lumber and supplies. Little Betty Cooper, the Determinator. “I was going to go build my own tree house—I made a blueprint and everything—but then Archie made you take it back and you ended up writing ‘Betty Exempted’ in brackets underneath.” She smiled up at him fondly. “Even as a kid, you were using big words.”

 “And _you_ were correcting my spelling.”

“I was _not_.”

Jughead grinned.

“I put in an extra ‘t’ and you crossed it out with chalk, remember?” They both chuckled softly, both flush with warmth at the memory of their shared childhood and he looked down at their shoes for a moment. When he looked up again, his smile had softened. “But really, Archie didn’t _make_ me do anything,” he confessed. “I decided to write that myself. I realized if you built your own treehouse, you wouldn’t want to keep breaking into mine.”

Oh.

_Oh._

— _Wild, wild horses_ — _we’ll ride them some day_ —

Her heart shattered into a thousand pieces and then reassembled itself in a burst of vibrancy and warmth. And then, like that, she _knew_.

She pitched forward to kiss him, not caring if her mother or anyone else saw. It was soft, romantic at first, and then with a bit more promise as she reveled in the delightful heat of his mouth and the way it parted eagerly against hers. She nipped at his bottom lip, sucking on it gently. Smiled around it when he put his hand on her cheek and pressed back against her with a quiet but appreciative groan as they continued to rock together.

Then the music slowed, lapsing into another song.  She became vaguely aware of the crowd around them, adjusting to the new tempo.

“Hey now,” Jughead whispered, pulling away slightly.  He looked dazed and flushed. “I promised my dad I’d be a gentleman tonight.”

 “Hmm, well, that’s you.” Betty canted her chin and brushed her nose with his. “ _I_ didn’t make any such promises.”

She reached up with both hands to tug him down for another kiss but he stopped her, his hands gentle on her wrists.

“Actually, Betty, there’s something that I wanted to talk to you tonight after the dance. It has to do with my dad.”

Betty nodded, not certain how to read his expression. “Sure. Is… everything ok?”

She knew that the two of them had talked in the car for a little bit.

“Yeah.” Jughead smiled and slipped his hands into hers. “Things are great. Better than they’ve been in a while.” He bit his lip. “I just—I kind of want to figure something out. Together.”

 “Do you want to talk about it now?”

“Uhm.” He looked over her shoulder. “This isn’t the best time and place for it— I see Bee making his way over here right now.”

“Right,” she sighed, exasperated. “Duty calls.” As the head of the Committee, she was supposed to introduce Mayor McCoy up on stage. She reached out to adjust his tie and smiled up at him. “I’ll be right back. Save me another dance?”

He smirked. “Can’t promise my dance card won’t fill up while you’re gone, Betts, but I’ll see what I can do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts and Comments always appreciated.


End file.
